He tore out the mutant's throat, and then he started to feed.
NINE
Wolf-bitten
A powerful blow smote Ragnar on the side of the head. The force of it knocked the young Space Wolf onto his side, but he was back upright in moments, showing his red slicked fangs and crouching protectively over his kill. Sigurd's pale face appeared before him, blood spattered and severe.
'By the holy name of Russ the Frimarch I take your soul into my hands, Ragnar Blackmane!' The priest's voice trembled, but the words were powerful, infused with the strength of centuries of faith. Ragnar blinked, drawing back from the image of a wolf's skull amulet that Sigurd brandished before his eyes.
'The wolf cannot have you! Your heart is not yours to give, but belongs to the Allfather, now and forever more! Remember your oaths, son of Fenris! Remember who you are!'
The words were like the tolling of a bell inside his head, cold and bright and irresistible. He fell heavily onto the floor, shaking his head dazedly.
After a moment, Ragnar's vision cleared. Sigurd the Wolf Priest loomed above him, his wide eyes fearful, but his expression hardened into a mask of determination. His Iron Wolf amulet was clenched in one gauntleted hand.
Ragnar could feel blood trickling over his lips and staining his breastplate. A shudder passed through him. The young Space Marine rose to his knees with an effort, and as he did so he noticed the bloody figure sprawled beside him. Ragnar looked down at the mangled corpse of the former priest and felt a wave of horror and revulsion crash down upon him. Blessed Russ, he thought despairingly, I'm wolf-bitten.
'Forgive me,' he said hoarsely, unable to tear his eyes away from the gaping wound in the mutant's throat.
'Forgiveness is earned in battle,' Sigurd said coldly. 'Stand and fight like a man, Ragnar, not an animal.' The Wolf Priest brandished his crozius before the young Space Wolf. 'Just as Russ overcame the wolf inside him out of love for the Allfather, so you must too rise above the beast within. Now get up. The foe awaits.'
Nodding Ragnar lurched to his feet. The battle in the war room was over. Sigurd and the remaining Blood Claws had arrived and overwhelmed the remaining traitors as Ragnar struggled with the huge mutant. Smoke and the stench of burned flesh hung in the air, and the bodies of the traitor Guardsmen lay in bloody heaps behind their makeshift barricades. Harald and his pack-mates stood among the carnage, clutching their weapons and watching the exchange between Ragnar and Sigurd with wary, fearful eyes. It was all Ragnar could do not to hang his head in shame.
A heavy blow to the shoulder nearly knocked the young Space Wolf off his feet. Haegr loomed over Ragnar, chuckling deep in his throat. 'You call that a bite? Mighty Haegr would have taken that monster's head off with a single snap of his jaws!'
The huge Space Wolf's laugh was infectious. Soon, every warrior in the room was laughing along with him, but for Sigurd and Ragnar.
'You want something to chew on, come over here and try your teeth on this,' Torin said, pressing his fingertips to the cold steel doors of the vault. 'Our time is almost up, and the Allfather alone knows what they're up to inside.'
Ragnar rubbed his chin with the back of his hand and turned to Sigurd. 'Have you got any charges left?'
'Two,' the Wolf Priest said, and nodded to Harald. The Blood Claw pack leader waved a pair of his men forward, and they began setting the charges against the door.
Harald turned to Sigurd. His eyes passed over Ragnar, as though afraid to see what lurked within the young Space Wolfs gaze. 'We're sure to kill everyone inside when these go off,' he said.
'No,' Ragnar replied, shaking his head as he reloaded his pistol. 'These doors are doubly reinforced, designed to protect the general staff in the event of a major attack. More likely the Shockwave will rebound back on us, so I suggest standing well off to either side of the door.'
The battered and bloodied Space Wolves quickly took up positions around the vault. Ragnar could still feel the sickly wash of unclean energies rippling from within. He nodded to the Blood Claw waiting at the threshold. The warrior keyed the fuse and leapt clear.
Sure enough, a tremendous concussion shook the entire room, throwing the armoured warriors back against the stone walls and sending clouds of broken debris flying through the air. When the smoke cleared, Ragnar leapt forward, weapons ready, and found a hole melted through the thick steel doors just wide enough for a Space Marine to fit through. He threw himself into the gap while the metal edges were still red-hot, with Torin, Haegr and Sigurd just a few steps behind him.
The vault was a small redoubt, with a narrow, thick-walled passageway beyond the molten doors that opened into an octagonal chamber barely ten metres across. Two bodies, charred almost beyond recognition, were sprawled on the stone floor at the far end of the passageway. Beyond them lay a scene of bloody pandemonium.
There were perhaps twenty officers and staff aides crammed into the chamber, shouting and babbling desperate pleas to their newfound gods. Their ornate uniforms were torn and stained where they had dug into their flesh with ceremonial knives, and their faces were painted in fresh blood. More blood had been spilled on the floor. A young orderly, little more than fifteen, had been dragged to his knees and slit from ear to ear, and the red flood that had poured from his narrow throat had been used to paint a blasphemous circle in the centre of the room. It was towards this terrible sigil that the rebels directed their pleas, their gore-stained hands outstretched in abject worship. As Ragnar charged into their midst he saw a ghostly figure take shape within the sigil. It was a towering form clad in ancient, baroque armour of blue and gold, its edges inlaid with blasphemous sigils, and its curved plates decorated with charms and fetishes of bone and withered skin. Flickering purple flames glinted hungrily in the oculars of the Chaos champion's horned helmet, fixing Ragnar with a glare of eternal malice. In one hand, the sorcerer held a sword made from tooth, horn and soulless, black iron. Flames leapt hungrily in the palm of his other hand, hissing and spitting in the dank air.
For a fleeting moment Ragnar's heart leapt with bloodthirsty joy at the thought that he'd come face-to-face with Madox himself. Yet there was no glint of recognition in the sorcerer's strange eyes as he raised his blazing hand and called out a horrific string of syllables in a raw, hateful voice.
A howling torrent of pink and purple fire burst from the sorcerer's hand, aimed right at Ragnar's chest. The bolt struck one of the rebel officers a glancing blow as it passed, and the traitor dissolved right before the young Space Wolfs eyes. Cursing fearfully, Ragnar threw himself to the side and the sorcerous flame struck his right pauldron a glancing blow. He heard the ceramite hiss and scream beneath the blast, scattering molten droplets upon the floor. The bolt continued on, missing Haegr by a hair's breadth and crashing into the onrushing form of Sigurd.
The sorcerous flames washed over the Wolf Priest in a chorus of thin, unearthly howls and a crackle of brittle thunder. Two Blood Claws to either side of the priest were thrown to the floor by the blast, but Sigurd was unmoved. The flames curled away from the rosarius that the Wolf Priest held before him, and he called out in a powerful voice, 'Traitor! Servant of false gods! I abjure you, warrior of the Thousand Sons! Look upon the sons of the Wolf and despair!'
The Thousand Sons Chaos Space Marine laughed at the Wolf Priest and uttered a stream of vile curses that caused the rebel Guardsmen to fall thrashing to the floor. Baring his teeth, Ragnar gathered his courage and charged at the unholy warrior, snapping off shots with his bolt pistol as he went.
Explosive rounds detonated harmlessly against the champion's breastplate and helm, leaving scarcely a mark on the ensorcelled armour. Undaunted, Ragnar stepped close and unleashed a storm of deadly blows with his master crafted frost blade, fully intending to chop the Chaos Space Marine to pieces.
Not a single blow found its mark. Whether by sorcery or pure, deadly skill, the champion blocked or evaded Ragnar's every move. The huge figure moved like quicksilver, seeming to anticipate the young Space Wolfs attacks, and countering them with disdainful ease. At one point Ragnar sensed he'd found an opening in the sorcerer's guard and nearly found himself impaled on the champion's unnatural blade.
A shadow flowed into Ragnar's field of vision to his left. Torin was there, catching the sorcerer's blade against his chainsword. Sensing an opportunity, Ragnar lunged forward with a slashing cut to the champion's shoulder, but the Chaos Space Marine fell back, dodging the blow.
Shouts and battle cries echoed in the confined space as the rebel troops reared up from the stone floor like beasts, and threw themselves at the Space Wolves. Dimly, Ragnar heard Sigurd repudiating the traitor Guardsmen in a loud, sonorous voice over the roar of chainblades and the bark of laspistols. Then a mountainous form loomed to the young Space Wolf's right and unleashed an earth shaking blow upon the Chaos champion. Haegr laughed as the sorcerer leapt backwards out of the path of the falling hammer. 'That's it, traitor! Dance like a maid!' he roared. 'You can't match blows with mighty Haegr!'
The sorcerer's hateful gaze never wavered, however, as he fell back, step by step, across the chamber. Ragnar counted the steps and gauged their distance to the far wall. He'll have his back up against the bricks in a few more metres, he thought, pressing his attack, and the bastard's too good not to know it, too. He's trading space for time.
A flash of understanding nearly stopped Ragnar in his tracks. 'Ambush!' he cried out, just as the air seemed to thicken and tear like rotted parchment, and a host of gibbering horrors appeared in the Space Wolves' midst.
Something heavy and rank landed wetly behind Ragnar and uttered a piping lunatic cry. Fearful of turning his back on the deadly Chaos Marine, the young Space Wolf pivoted on his back foot and thrust out his pistol at a writhing column of pink and purple flesh. The daemon's four thorny tentacles wrapped around Ragnar's arm and chest, and the column of muscle contracted, hauling the young Space Wolf towards the creature's serrated beak.
Ragnar cried out as the black beak gaped mere centimetres from his skull. Then he felt the lash of another set of tentacles around his neck and waist, and he was jerked to a painful halt. Yet another daemon had trapped him in its talons, and now the two unholy creatures gibbered and squawked at one another as they vied for his flesh.
An entire pack of tentacled horrors fdled the octagonal space, snapping and lashing out at everything that moved. As Ragnar struggled, he saw a pair of rebel Guardsmen torn to pieces in a messy spray of blood and entrails. Sigurd reeled within the grasp of a trio of snapping monsters, thick purple ichor smoking from the crackling edges of his crozius. The Blood Claws were beset on every side, but Harald stood in their midst, holding the burning husk of a daemon in his power fist and shouting a rallying cry to his men.
Growling angrily, Ragnar squeezed the trigger and the bolt pistol bucked in his hand, blowing a smoking hole in the daemon standing before him. Shrieking, the monster recoiled, drawing its tentacles still tighter. The daemon behind Ragnar pulled back just as fiercely, and the young Space Wolf felt the bones in his neck creak from the strain. With a savage curse, he lashed out with his free hand, and the frost blade slashed through two of the tentacles that bound him. Ichor gushed over Ragnar's armour as the daemon in front of him unwrapped its remaining tentacles and tried to slither away. Immediately, the young Space Wolf was hauled backwards towards his second assailant, but Ragnar levelled his bolt pistol and fired twice more at the wounded daemon, blasting its head apart in a shower of dissolving flesh. Then he spun in mid-air, levelling his frost blade and impaling the daemon that had been so hungry to draw him into its embrace. The rune-marked chainsword tore through the daemon's abominable form, causing it to discor-porate into a cloud of foul, clinging mist.
Ragnar twisted as he fell, landing hard on his back and skidding across the stone floor. His bolt pistol came up, seeking targets. The entire chamber was filled with a riot of struggling, slashing bodies, and the crash of battle roared surf-like in his ears. The light inside the chamber seemed to pulse and shift. Shadows flitted at the corners of the young Space Wolfs eyes, but he muttered a prayer to Russ under his breath and focused on the battle at hand.
He caught sight of a Blood Claw grappling with a snapping, strangling daemon a few metres away and put a bolt-round through the monster's nominal head. Another warrior went down beneath the thrashing tentacles of a pair of purple horrors. Ragnar pumped shell after shell into the daemons' muscular bodies until the Space Wolf managed to tear his sword-arm free and hack one of the monsters in half.
A severed head bounced across the floor. The face was masked with blood, but Ragnar knew from the scent that it was one of Harald's battle-brothers. Some distance away, the young Space Wolf saw Haegr pull a lashing, snapping daemon from his chest with one broad hand and smash it against the wall beside him. Another monster darted in, bloodstained beak clashing hungrily, but the Wolfblade crushed it with a downward sweep of his massive hammer.
Another daemon erupted in a gout of purple ichor. Harald raised his dripping power fist in triumph, his fangs glinting in the faint light. Then Ragnar saw the monster rising like a snake behind the pack leader, its tentacles rearing back to strike.
Ragnar drew a bead on the daemon, and a dark shadow fell over him. He heard the rasp of ancient armour and the hungry sweep of the Chaos champion's blade as it drew back for the killing blow.
In a split-second, the young Space Wolf made his choice. Commending his soul to the Allfather, he fired an explosive round past the pack leader's head and into the daemon's gaping beak.
Shadows danced above his head. Metal crashed against metal, and Ragnar heard a rumbling liquid growl.
Blood pounding in his temples, Ragnar faced his attacker, only to find the sorcerer grappling with a huge Space Wolf in scarred, gunmetal-grey armour. The warrior fought the champion bare-handed, one powerful hand gripping the sorcerer's sword wrist, while the other closed inexorably around the Chaos Marine's throat.
There was wiry grey fur matted along the back of the Space Wolfs hands. Ragnar caught a glimpse of curved, black talons, and then he noticed the shaggy mane and the strange shape of the warrior's head.
The Space Wolf sensed Ragnar's eyes upon him. He glanced back at Ragnar, furred snout wrinkling as his lips pulled back in a bestial snarl.
Cursing wildly, Ragnar hurled himself to the right, rolling away from the struggling figures. In moments, he clambered unsteadily to his feet and whirled around, weapons raised, but the struggling warriors were gone. They had simply vanished, as though they'd never existed.